Existence By A Window
by MedliR
Summary: Yuffie's life, or what it is, after a heart-wrenching and mind-numbing tragedy. Warnings: character death and the circumstances thereof.


**A/N:** I humbly present this little piece wholly inspired by the SHeDAISY song Love Goes On. I suggest you listen to it on repeat while reading this. I did while writing it. I nearly made myself cry, so I also suggest that tissues may be necessary. This was originally supposed to follow the song much more closely than it does, but I think it worked out better this way. I may do another version someday, but then again I may not. We'll just have to see.

The style is disjointed and incorrect on purpose, so please don't tell me there's something weird about it; this is supposed to be a very sad and grieving stream-of-consciousness.

Disclaimer: I own neither the FFVII or the SHeDAISY song; these belong to Square and SHeDAISY respectively. I just get inspired by their work

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It has been three months. Three months of standing by the window and looking outside. It is all she ever does any more. She doesn't work, she doesn't speak. She doesn't really eat until the little catbot makes her, the quaver and the fear that he will lose her too apparent in his voice. She always laughs to herself in her head when he does this, and thinks how little he knows about how close she is, and how far she is away from him already.

She stands by the window and thinks. She thinks about how she should have been closer to him on that day. She shouldn't have been standing so far back. It should have been her. Not him. She remembers the entire day and relives the hours over and over again, day in and day out.

She remembers how excited they all were, how perfect it was going to be. How the planet was finally at peace and they were going to celebrate it with everyone, simply everyone everywhere. She remembers skipping in happiness and shudders at her own unknowing irreverence, at her inability to predict what was going to happen in the next few minutes. She remembers hearing the crack and the boom, and seeing him fall and the hurt that she felt when she hit the ground, unable to move and unable to think and unable to realize the reality of the entire situation.

She remembers feeling like she was waking up, like her ears had been partially unstopped, like she was in a dream. She remembers hearing the voices, but whose voices, whose voices saying they couldn't find a Phoenix Down and it was too late for one anyway she cannot remember and it panics her all over again, and she remembers Cait starting to cry, and she remembers crawling forward and so much, so much, so much, and she shakes her head and hits it against the windowsill because she knows that she will stay in that loop forever if she doesn't, so much blood.

She sees the holes in Reeve's chest and stomach and the blood everywhere and her fingers. She sees them coated in the blood and feels them coated in the blood and tries over and over and over again to do what she could not make them do on that day when she was trying to scoop his blood in her hands and trying to put it back inside of him where it belonged, and Cait sees this and starts to cry all over again because he knows how close he is to losing her and how far she is away already.

It is like this every day. She forgets at night and dreams of the happy times and the good times and the kisses and the hugs and the just being near each other. And then in the morning the alarm goes off because she refuses to change it form the time when he usually - used to - get up and she reaches for him and then the crack and the boom is in her chest as she sits up with a gasp and a cry that marks the inrush of the memories and the reality into her head that it is now three months and one week to the day that she changed her last name.

Then she gets up and goes to stand by the window. She stands by the window and thinks and doesn't talk and doesn't smile. She thinks about how her mother told her that if she caught all of her tears in a little glass bottle and poured them out on Da Chao to Leviathan that the water-god would grant her her dearest wish. She has four full bottles on a tiny cord around her neck, and the fifth only needs a few more drops of tears. She thinks that if one bottle will get her her dearest wish, then five or more or as many as she can fill will get her that wish even more so.

And she thinks on those days when she aches in her bones and she can see him everywhere she looks until she focuses on what she is looking at that if Leviathan does not grant her her wish and bring Reeve back for her to hold, and it is times like this that she hates Aeris and her Cetra blood that allows her to talk to Cloud from the Lifestream because Reeve is - was - more dear and he cannot talk to her no matter how much she calls for him in her mind, that if Leviathan does not grant her her wish and bring Reeve back for her to hold that she will throw herself off of Da Chao, and she always reaches for the money that will take her there when she thinks this.

She reaches for the money that will take her back to Wutai and then she stills her hands and unstops the fifth bottle and catches her tears inside because Reeve always told her that she was strong and that she could do anything and she thinks that he would not want her to do that, but then she stands at the window and looks down at the sill and sees the dozens and dozens of little white sticks and the little blue lines and she thinks that she is not strong enough for this.

And as she thinks that again and catches the tears and they overflow out of the bottle she makes a decision and puts the stop in the bottle and turns away from the window and puts her hands on the money and Yuffie Tuesti stops thinking.

And Cait Sith stands there in the doorway and watches her and does not know what to think.


End file.
